Crimea and colorable claims based on moral standing
We
introduced yesterday the colorable claim based on law in the context of Crimea.
For a notion of “colorable claim” based on a historical claim and based on law
see our previous posts this week.
Post 71: Territorial disputes: Crimea (Part 6) Crimea and the different claims
Post 72: Territorial disputes: Crimea (Part 7) Crimea and the colorable claim: who counts?
Post 73: Territorial disputes: Crimea (Part 8) Crimea: same facts but different accounts
Post 74: Territorial disputes: Crimea (Part 9) Crimea and colorable claims based on law
Amongst other legal issues concerning Crimea, we referred yesterday to
the Budapest Memorandum. Regardless of the discussion about the legal or
political value of this international document, it is important to distinguish
two concepts: sovereignty and self-determination.
In
international relations, self-determination is a principle that allows a
certain group of people who live in a given territory to have the right to
decide who will govern them. Although both are legal and political concepts,
sovereignty gives priority to the State whereas self-determination gives
preeminent place to the people.
The notion of territorial integrity is directly
linked to the concept of state sovereignty since nowadays sovereignty is
territorially defined.
To
sum up the legal issues in relation to this TERRITORIAL DISPTUTE: Russia and
Ukraine support their claims using different approaches. Russia claims to
protect the self-determination right of the people in Crimea while Ukraine
claims the violation of their territorial integrity.
A
few points of interest relevant to Crimea, territorial integrity and
self-determination:
“Contrary to what one might initially think, the
underlying premise of the territorial integrity norm is not a commitment to
separateness but a commitment to a global political order in which people have
excised a major source of international violence. In this sense mutually
recognized and respected boundaries are not what separate peoples but what
binds them together.”
The
Territorial Integrity Norm: International Boundaries and the Use of Force
“The perceptions of Russian threat to the
territorial integrity of Ukraine that underpinned its demands for security
guarantees in the early 1990s have proved justified. Bereft of allies and
weakened by perennial bad governance that led to an internal political crisis,
Ukraine became an easy target for Mr. Putin. The Budapest Memorandum failed to
deter Russian aggression because it imposed no immediate cost for its
violation. The political assurances it provided rested on the goodwill and
self-restraint of the guarantors, an arrangement that can work between allies
but not potential adversaries. The Crimean crisis exposed how quickly
self-restraint dissipates when a guarantor becomes revisionist.”
Ukraine’s Territorial Integrity and the
Budapest Memorandum
“Interestingly, in these two different cases,
despite being in opposite positions, Russia has been able to posture itself
favorably. In the case of Chechnya, Russia justified its position with the
right to protect its national unity and territorial integrity suppressing
Chechens’ aspirations for self-determination, while in the case of Crimea fully
supporting the Crimean Russians’ separation from Ukraine to join Russia. These
two cases are a sign of the futility of international law to achieve justice;
rather they show that power, a realist concept, still plays a decisive role in
Russia-centered politics.”
Power, National Unity, and Territorial
Integrity: the Cases of Russia’s Chechnya and Ukraine’s Crimea
The
last article reviews whether it may be possible to resolve the dilemma of
self-determination versus territorial integrity. As the reader may expect, the
conclusion remains open. That is because although we may refer to legal
concepts such as self-determination and territorial integrity or State
sovereignty, TERRITORIAL DISPUTES are not centred only on law. They are
multi-faceted and multi-level. Therefore, other elements such as power,
interest, domestic, regional, and international prestige, and many other issues
at stakes should be considered in we aim to achieve a peaceful and definitive
solution.
SELF-DETERMINATION. Sovereignty, Territorial
Integrity, and the Right to Secession
NOTE: This post is based on Jorge Emilio Núñez,
“Territorial Disputes and State Sovereignty: International Law and Politics,”
London and New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2020 (forthcoming)
Previous
published research monograph about territorial disputes and sovereignty by the
author, Jorge Emilio Núñez, “Sovereignty Conflicts and International Law and
Politics: A Distributive Justice Issue,” London and New York: Routledge, Taylor
and Francis Group, 2017.
NEXT
POST: Crimea and colorable claims based on moral standing (cont.)
Friday 28th February 2020
Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez
Twitter: @London1701
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